


Don’t Blame Me For Who I Am

by belivaird_st



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: F/F, Family, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:14:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24171130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belivaird_st/pseuds/belivaird_st
Summary: Rindy has been teased and bullied for having Carol and Therese’s relationship entwine with her life.
Relationships: Carol Aird/Therese Belivet
Comments: 2
Kudos: 101





	1. Chapter 1

Manhattan, New York, 1960’s

~~~

“How’s school? Still getting those A’s?” Carol took the bowl of mashed potatoes from Therese, who was already looking at Rindy, giving the young teen her full attention.

“I’ve made the Honor Roll if that’s what you mean,” Rindy replied, burying the tip of her fork into her mixed peas and carrots.

“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful news!” Carol was busy serving herself a portion of the steamed potatoes. 

“We’re so proud,” Therese added, laying her napkin on her lap.

Rindy glared at her dinner plate. Carol looked puzzled now.

“Well, don't look so glum, dear. It’s truly a great achievement.”

“Is it?”

“What’s wrong, Rin?” Therese asked her.

The girl threw her fork with a clatter,

“I’m the only sophomore in my class with two mothers! The laughing stock in my school! No thanks to the both of you!”

“Rindy—” Carol began.

“Bryce O’Keefe asked me to the dance, but he backed out when he learned about my family. You know how unfair it is to have my own mother’s lifestyle interfere with mine? It blows!”

“You can’t expect everybody to be your friend,” Carol chuckled softly.

“Bryce O’Keefe doesn’t even know us,” Therese scoffed.

“He’s Quarterback of the Football Team,” Rindy snapped. “I like him, and he did too, until he found out that my mom’s a dyke and has a girlfriend.”

“Hey!” Carol gave Rindy a troublesome stare. “I don’t call you names, so stop spewing them on me!”

“Rindy, if this boy left you, he never really liked you in the first place. You’re way too smart for that and could outshine anyone your age.” Therese began cutting her chicken rosemary with a knife and fork that Carol prepared.

Rindy rolled her eyes to the ceiling fan.

“I hate it here.”

“So go, if you’re miserable. Don’t let me stop you. Pack your things and phone your father...” Carol waved for her daughter to leave the table. Therese looked at her sharply. Then she tried covering up her partner’s words. “Your mother didn’t mean that. We want you here for the night.”

“Looks like I’m already leaving.” Rindy rose up from her chair making a few dishes rattle on the table. She stormed off with Carol resting her forehead against her folded hands.

“Why the hell would you say that?” Therese demanded. “She’s our daughter!”

“No,” Carol weakly smiled, picking her head up. “She’s her father’s. Been that way since the divorce.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rindy was in the middle of shoving a yellow daisy blouse inside a leather knapsack on her frameless bed when Therese entered the forest green shag carpet room that had a bubble lamp and posters of The Beatles and Bob Dylan thumbtacked on the oak paneled walls. Therese watched the teen from the doorway and picked at her nails anxiously. 

“Maybe we should wait until dessert for you to start packing everything?”

“No—you heard what Mom said!”

“Getting worked up like this won’t do anyone a bit of good. Your mother loves you, and so do I,” Therese spoke gently. “We agreed for the weekend to have you and that’s how it should go.”

“Don’t you get it? I. Hate. This. Place. I hate feeling like a joke!” Rindy seethed. She moved over towards her dresser to pull out more clothes. She even tossed her hairbrush where her bag sat on the bed.

“You think we’re a joke?” Therese’s eyes flashed with hurt and anger. “Your mother and I love each other! There’s nothing funny about that!”

“All you do is in secret! You don’t hold hands in public! Or kiss! You guys walk three feet apart from each other! And the only time when you are really together is behind closed doors! That isn’t love! It’s just an act!” Rindy shouted. 

“The world doesn’t accept our kind of love yet,” Therese shot back, feeling her skin grow hot with humiliation. “If only you could understand that. It’s not so easy...”

“Then what’s the point?” Rindy demanded. “Why live a life you cannot enjoy?”

“Rindy, call your father right now,” Carol joined them holding the cherry rotary telephone in her hands.


	3. Chapter 3

Harge stood waiting outside his brown Chrysler. His arms were crossed over his chest. They unfolded once he saw Rindy walk out of her mother’s home in a dark blue pinafore and puffy sleeve blouse. She had two notebooks cradled in one arm and her leather bag hanging by the wrist. She quickly descended down the granite steps and headed directly towards her father.

Carol had been standing behind the window holding parts of the living room curtain to watch her daughter hop into the passenger side of her ex-husband's car. Harge closed the door for her before walking to the driver's seat. He got in without a mere glance at the apartment. He started the engine and pulled out from the side of the curb.

“Harge took Rindy. They’re gone,” Carol sighed sadly, entering the dining room where Therese was clearing off the table. Rubbing the back of her neck, she waited for Therese’s response. When there was none, Carol blinked and dropped her hand back down.

Therese held the bowl of mashed potatoes with silent anger. She brushed past Carol to the connected kitchen. She sealed the food with plastic wrap to put it in the fridge for leftovers. Carol approached her with slight caution.

“Honey, I didn’t want this to happen. Rindy was acting up tonight and things got out of hand...” 

“Why didn’t you stop her? You left me doing all the dirty work,” Therese snapped.

“What was I suppose to do? Lock her up in her bedroom for the rest of the weekend?” Carol hollered, feeling Therese brush past her once more. She followed her back into the dining room. Therese was collecting Rindy’s plate and drinking glass. As she was leaving, Carol was rubbing her forehead starting to feel a migraine coming along. 

Replaying back to what Rindy was telling her about her relationship with Carol was nothing but a secret and that it wasn’t love, made her want to scream out and throw things. Therese pulled out the trashbin from underneath the sink to scrape the remains of Rindy’s dinner with her throat tightening up.  
Maybe the love she had for Carol didn’t exist and they were only playing a part in some silly act.

“What are you thinking right now?” Carol asked, standing at the doorway. “Please don’t tell me Rindy’s gone through your head. She’s only a child!”

Therese stares into the coffee grounds, soaked napkins, and orange peels inside the trashbin. She feels a heaviness in her heart, mind, and soul. Carol marches over breaking away her daze.

“Don’t think for one second any of that nonsense is true,” she says sharply, “Do you hear me? We didn’t get this far for nothing!” Carol gives Therese a hard shake by the arms.

“It just hurts,” Therese whispers, and she wasn’t talking about the fact that her arms were being squeezed too tight. She was talking about the loss of dinner, the outburst with Rindy, and the sad truth of the world being so judgmental and uninviting.


	4. Chapter 4

The bathroom window was pushed open with a serenade of crickets hidden deep beneath the row of shrubbery lined up from the backside of the apartment. Carol was hunched over on top of the closed toilet seat clipping her toenails over a wastebasket. Therese was flossing her teeth in front of the medicine cabinet mirror. Both ends of the white minty ribbon were curled around her fingers.

“Rindy’s happiness had always been my top priority,” Carol began.

“Mine, too,” Therese murmured. 

“After tonight’s dinner, it made me realize she was already happy. I just made it worse.”

“We both did.”

_Click. Click._

Carol took a pause between the soft clicks of the clippers going off.

“Rindy’s made it clear we’re not enough for her.” Therese scraped the inside of her mouth until she made herself taste her own blood. She tossed out the dental thread before switching on the cold sink faucet. She swished and spat water from her mouth to rinse out the coppery taste.

_Click. Click._

“It’s nobody’s business how we love each other,” Carol tore off a hanging nail from her longest toe in the middle and got rid of it.

“Do you think we’re a joke?” the other woman whispered. 

“No, I do not,” Carol replied firmly. She leaned back to set the clippers aside and stretched out her legs. “I met Harge when I was in my twenties. Our families knew each other and they arranged for us to get married in city hall. He loved me in his own way and I tried my best to return it. I felt like I was living in somebody else’s life. Then I got pregnant.”

Therese continued listening.

“I had Rindy, but I still felt like a part of me was missing. The birth wasn’t enough to make me feel like I was a whole person.”

Carol got up to leave. Therese followed her, switching the bathroom light off.

“Abby knew my truth. We were lovers, but decided to stay as friends and play it safe. I had a child to raise and she didn’t want the Airds to grow suspicious on my ‘wrongdoings’. The constant arguments and fights with Harge came later and my long desire for divorce drew out in the open. Then you came into my life. And I don’t regret any of it.”


	5. Chapter 5

“You did the right thing leaving that sinful house. Don’t feel bad for your mother’s illness, my dear,” Harge’s mother stood beside Rindy in front of a full length mirror squeezing the girl's bare forearm. Jennifer Aird’s confidence wore brightly compared to the blank, lost stare Rindy had along with the white collar lace dress and silk ribbon bow tied to the back waist. Her grandparents invited a few people, including the men Harge worked with at the bank. The only other “children” downstairs was Hensley Gershwin, a boy who went to a private school that was smart and handsome, a charming fellow the Airds desperately wanted Rindy to get to know.

“Maybe I said the wrong thing?”

“You’ve spoken the truth about their so-called love. Their unnatural lifestyle just doesn’t work for us. It’s barbaric!” 

Jennifer was smiling up at her growing grandchild. She patted her affectionately before steering them towards the hallway leading downstairs. 

“Everyone’s met my Rindy yet?”  
Harge called out to a few people the moment his daughter entered the smoky billiard room.

Rindy snuck back outside to the front porch. The cool weather felt nice on her skin. Hensley Gershwin came over dressed up in his school uniform blazer. 

“Do you like these kinds of parties?” he asked, holding out a steaming glass of boiled apple cider that had a slice floating on top with two cinnamon sticks.

“They’re the only ones I know,” Rindy answered, taking the drink from him. She blew the heat before placing her lips on the rim of the glass. The cider still burned her mouth and made her pull back. 

“Still hot,” Gershwin grinned. “Your maid just switched off the burner...”

Rindy didn’t say anything. She looked at the dirt road where she saw five female ducks ruffling out their wings; waddling their webbed feet nowhere in particular. Her father’s home was located in the countryside of New Jersey and lived a few miles from a pond. The ducks could stay or leave whenever they felt like it. Rindy loved them for that.

“You’re not like most girls,” Gershwin broke the silence that held between them.

“Is that suppose to be a compliment?” Rindy brought her cup back to her lips, bopping her nose with one of the cinnamon sticks.

“Well, you don’t talk so much. It’s very peaceful. Our fathers could take a few tips from you.”

Rindy drank her cider. Gershwin shifted his church shoes on the floorboards that groaned underneath. 

“Your mother must keep to herself. Is she here?”

“No, she died,” Rindy spoke with a straight face, keeping her eyes on the ducks on the dirt road. “Boating accident.”


	6. Chapter 6

“That’s really... um... Terribly sorry to hear that.” Gershwin looked slightly uncomfortable not sure what to say next.

“Want to go take a walk with me?” she asked him. Rindy took his cider before he could respond and brought the drinks back inside. Hensley was still standing at the exact same spot on the porch when the Aird daughter came back, all calm and content, like nothing happened.

The ducks waddled off the dirt road once the kids were coming towards them. Gershwin drag kicked his loafer shoe through small rocks and dirt with both his thumbs hooked through the loopholes of his pants. He saw Rindy’s manicured hand below the side of her party dress and found himself reaching down to hold it.

_“Hensley Gershwin, come meet our granddaughter, Dorinda! Commonly known as, “Rindy,” for short,” Harge’s mother introduced them in the parking lot at a burger & ice cream parlor one Sunday afternoon. “She’s fifteen. Just a grade younger than you...”_

_Rindy barely spoke a word once she was greeted hello. The boy was at full height with dark, serious eyes, and thick brown hair to match._

_How many girls has he kissed in the school year? Does he play sports like football or play an instrument? Is he still a virgin?_

Gershwin was now pulling Rindy’s hand for them to walk faster. She stumbled to keep in step with him, but didn’t say anything and kept her eyes forward; feeling the rapid pulse of her heart beating in her chest.

Harge Aird didn’t mind having one of the town ladies leaning above him at the table in the middle of a poker game with his father and a few other businessmen. The woman stank of alcohol and kept pressing her breasts up against his shoulder as he laid out his deck of cards. Mrs. Aird walked into the room holding a tin box of shortbread cookies.

“Harge, have you seen Rindy come through? I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Huh?”

“Your daughter!” 

“No, dear.”

“Hasn’t been around here for awhile, Jenny,” Mr. Aird informed her.

“Don’t you ‘Jenny’ me,” she scolded him, slapping his hand the moment he was trying to reach inside the tin box of cookies.

“Just one cookie, Jennifer,” he pleaded.

“Keep mind of your blood sugar, John!”

Rindy had been kissing Gershwin for ten minutes behind a wide oak tree at the duck pond a few miles from the party. Her soft hands cupping each side of his face, she panted heavily once their hot mouths pulled apart. His eyes were half closed with his arms hugging her waist.

“Never thought we’d get this far,” he whispered, breathing in her lavender soap.

“You knew this would happen,” Rindy giggled loudly. She squirmed as she tried getting her arm out from underneath him. Gershwin loosened his grasp, but didn’t let go. 

“It goes without saying,” he tilted his head forward.

Rindy pushed him off.

“My grandmother's going to have a cow if I’m not back yet,” she muttered.

“Okay then. Let’s step on it,” Gershwin replied, tucking parts of his white button shirt back inside the waistband of his pants.

Rindy stayed far apart from Gershwin during the walk and kept fixing the silk bow of her dress that was crooked on the back. The minute they got back to the house, Rindy saw a few people already leaving for the night saying their goodbyes and getting into their cars.

“Rindy! There you are! My goodness, you had me sick with worry! If I had known you’d be running off with Maverick’s little boy, I would’ve made preparations for the wedding!” Mrs. Aird exclaimed. She had been rocking on the porch swing, shivering underneath a festive shawl draped over her bare, speckled arms in the cool evening. Her husband sat beside her in his three-piece suit munching cookies from a square tin box. 

“Hensley! We’re leaving now!” called out his mother, standing by the orange Chevrolet with her husband resting one hand on top of the hood holding a pipe in his mouth.

“Say goodbye to the young lady,” his father commanded. 

“Goodbye. Swell party,” Gershwin smiled sheepishly.

“It was something else,” she shrugged.


	7. Chapter 7

“Will we get to see more of Gershwin in the future?” Mrs. Aird questioned her granddaughter as they both sat on the furnished stairs with housemaid Kimberly cleaning up the dishes and Harge counting his winnings in the next room alongside his old man snoring heavily in his leather chair. Rindy was tired with her chin resting on the palm of her hand.

“Maybe,” she mumbled.

Jenn had seized the young teenage girl tightly in her arms; planting a loud kiss on the crown of her head.

“I’m so glad! You might want to ring your mother goodnight. Maybe hearing a bit of news will do her some good...”

“Gramma, I’m the last person she wants to hear from me,” Rindy scratched her kneecap. Being outside tonight made her sweat and feel dirty and she couldn’t wait to change out of her clothes.

“Don’t be silly. Now go tell your mother about the splendid party tonight with that handsome boy. Then I want you to pray for her soul!”

Rindy took a bubble bath before changing into a yellow silk set of pajamas getting ready to call Carol goodnight.

Her mother sounded formal. 

“Did you enjoy the party?”

“I spent most of my time at the duck pond with Hensley Gershwin. He’s a private school student both Gramma and Grandpa are trying to fix me up.”

“Remember you don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. That includes boys,” Carol said, gently. 

Rindy began fiddling with the golden tassel hanging off one corner of a pillow she had pressed underneath her.

“Is that what you keep telling yourself, Mom? Before you kiss Therese?”

“Don’t be cruel to me.”

“I pray for you, Mother. I pray for your soul,” Rindy spoke sadly from the other line. “Therese’s soul, too.”

“What did you just say?” Carol cried. “Those are your grandmother's words!”

“They’re coming from me,” Rindy snapped. “You have an illness, Mom. That’s the truth and you must accept it. All I can do is pray and say goodnight to you...”

“Rindy—”

“So, goodnight. Goodnight, Mom.” 

She hung up the cream-gold metal headpiece back in its cradle before setting the rotary back on top of the nightstand.


End file.
